Category - establishment

The incongruity appeared to raise little comment. At a wedding - perhaps one of the most tender of human ceremonies in its manifestation of love and hope - all the principal male figures wore the uniforms of forces whose business is armed conflict.

Reading the church media over the past week, and probably for the succeeding one, would leave many people with the impression that the boundary between church and monarchy is virtually indecipherable. I find this elision of faith in God with a longing for worldly pomp and circumstance deeply disturbing.

Monarchy as an institution rooted in inherited wealth and pure eugenic privilege stands in contrast with, and contradiction to, the levelling Gospel of Jesus Christ, argues Simon Barrow. But a kind of mythology and ritualising in the popular imagination prevents both Christians and others from seeing what is really going on, and what is wrong with it.

In a culture seemingly dominated by royalist propaganda, particularly around the wedding of William and Kate, here are plenty of reasons to be republican, says Phil Wood; not all of them honourable. Some may be in danger of reinforcing what they oppose. But for Christians, the case for disestablishing the kingdom and the church derives from a higher level of subversion, and a vision of equity before monarchy which people from many backgrounds are seeking.

My colleague Symon Hill's appearance on 4though.tv this evening (13 April 2011), arguing that the mutual inherence of an Established Church and the institution of monarchy compromises the Gospel message of freedom and identification with the least in society (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/14559), comes weeks away from the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

The Channel 4 television 'beliefs' slot, 4thought.tv - which unlike BBC Radio 4 'Thought for the Day' is open to both believers of all stripes and non-believers - has been asking if we should be proud of the Queen's close ties with the Church of England, or if these ties are anti-Catholic and exclude other beliefs in multicultural Britain.

A very curious thing happened this afternoon. The Queen began her traditional Christmas Day television and radio broadcast with seven paragraphs on "the King James, or Authorised, Bible, which next year [2011] will be exactly four centuries old"... before concluding that it was all done "to build communities and create harmony, and one of the most powerful ways of doing this is through sport and games."

Christian groups who fear discrimination say they want a "level playing-field" for British Christians. But if we are to take this concept seriously, let's not only support religious liberty for all people but also give up the privileges that are granted to Christians and denied to others. This would be a powerful demonstration of Christian love in action.